


The Golden Age

by quigonejinn



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: BDSM, F/M, Femdom, Leash Play, M/M, Pegging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 19:50:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herc Hansen and kink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Golden Age

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is really, really angsty, guys. If you are not into angst and kink and hideous amounts of Team Hot Dads sappy soap operatic feels, this is not the story for you.
> 
> Also, Scott Hansen and his rapist assholery makes a brief, non-explicit appearance.
> 
> Also, this goes with the novel bits about there having been days between the double and triple events, as well as Herc having broken his collarbone, not his arm.

I. 

When Scissure makes landfall, a quarter of Sydney goes radioactive. Ash comes down for days; tens of thousands of people die or are missing. There is nothing else on the newspapers, and there is nothing else on the televisions in the refuge shelter. 

Whole parts of Herc Hansen's life have gone up in smoke. 

...

For example, the house and everything in it. For example, the plans he had about finishing out his time and finding civilian work. For example, whatever relationship he might have had with his son: they were doing a little better before this, now that Chuck had started accepting that Dad was going to be around regularly, that this wasn't coming back just for Christmas or only a three-week stay before shipping back to coalition forces. 

For example -- 

It feels like whole parts of Herc Hansen have gone up in smoke. 

...

The night before they're supposed to go into the Drift simulator for the first time, Herc and Scott sit down, awkwardly, and follow the disclosure protocol. Is there anything they haven't told each other? Anything the other person should know? _Feelings of guilt and shame matter in the Drift_ ,Caitlin Lightcap says. _The things that you most want to hide from the other person will come to the surface._

Then, she'd fixed each of them with a particularly sharp look. _Gentlemen, your numbers are too good to wash out over a bad first Drift. You want to get into a Jaeger? Talk to each other._

So they're sitting outside on the grimy, gray balcony on their family housing unit looking out on Kodiak Bay, the Pacific Ocean right there, and Scott tells Herc about stealing from Mum's purse when he was fourteen and owed somebody money and you remember how tight things where then. A couple other times he's lied. Herc knows what his face must look like, so he breathes out and tells Scott that he'll probably see the trainee crash from Kandahar, when one of the fighter pilot trainees came in too sharp and slammed into the tarmac at the wrong angle and there was nothing Herc could do but watch that crew burn. 

Also, Angie. 

"I know you miss her," Scott says, face softening. 

Herc grimaces and looks away and knows he has to find words to describe it. 

...

He'd been only a little ashamed while Angie was alive, and during, it felt too good for him to think about anything else: he back in Sydney for Christmas, and the kid was off with his grandparents for the afternoon and night to give him and Angie some time alone, and and maybe him and Angie would go out for a nice dinner afterwards, but for now, he was crawling on his hands and knees over the floor to her. 

She asked if he'd been a good boy while he was away; he told her yes, so she reached down and checked and found him already slicked up and loose. He'd been practicing while he was away, hadn't he? Keeping himself ready for her? So she tied his hands behind his back, then put him on his back on the dining table and ran the ropes down over his chest, over and behind his knees. Then she told him she was going to beat him until she couldn't see freckles on his thighs anymore, and Herc remembers the noise he made -- all those months of loneliness and grief, all that time away from her going out of him in a single noise. 

She came around to the table. His hair was too short for her to grip, so she took him by the jaw and turned his face towards her. "Did I say that you could make a noise like that?" 

"No, Angela," he said, voice small, eyes closed because he wasn't supposed to look at her without permission when she was _Angela_.

So she got out the thin cane and made him count how many strokes it took for his thighs and legs to turn the color she wanted. When she was satisfied, she showed him her nine-inch and made him lick it from bottom to tip. Eyes still closed, Herc listened to her put it back into the harness and slick it up -- the noises it made in her fist, the smear of lube she put on his right cheekbone when when she'd lubed up her dick as much as he deserved, the way he howled when she gripped his bruised left thigh and twisted. 

For that noise, she said, he was going to count how many strokes it took for him to come from being fucked after his beating. 

...

She untied him afterwards, and there was one point where he was awkwardly balanced on his hip on the table, half of him tied and the other half free because one of the knots wasn't coming undone because it had been a while -- cursing, she ran to the kitchen and got the scissors because it'd been a while and she was out of practice, and then, they showered together. With the water on their bodies, Angie leaned one elbow against him and said, "You counted twenty-eight so many times when I was fucking you," she said. 

Herc grinned, told her that's what she got for marrying a boy from Queensland. 

Then, he turned the water off, got down on his knees in the shower, and didn't get up until she'd come twice. 

Then, they got dressed and went out to dinner. Angie smiled and pretended to look out the window while Herc braced himself to sit down. They held hands on top of the table; under the table, Angie hooked one foot around Herc's left ankle. 

...

After Scissure comes through, it feels like that part of Herc goes up in smoke 

...

After Scissure -- 

...

After the Drift run, Caitlin shows them the printout with the lines representing their separate minds. 

"Congratulations, gentlemen," she says. "Welcome to the ninety-fourth percentile on your very first time out together."

Scott grins at Herc, acts as if he wasn't surprised by anything he saw in the Drift, and they get Lucky Seven.

One night, in Long Beach, their fourth shatterdome that year, Scott gets Herc to come out with him. _A better quality of girl than you'll get on the Shatterdome_ , he says, notwithstanding the fact that they both know Herc doesn't sleep with PPDC personnel. He spent more time in the RAAF than Scott did; he knows that the Corps isn't like that, but there are differences in rank and status. 

Scott is across the room talking to a pair of Jaeger flies. A guy comes up to Herc and, a little nervously, asks if he can buy the Ranger a drink. 

...

It takes Herc a while to realize the man isn't going to ask him for a photograph or an autograph. He wouldn't mind giving those, is fine with it, doesn't mind, but the man doesn't ask: works for a subcontractor to a subcontractor for the Shatterdome, he says, and Herc is puzzling over what the man want until Herc figures out that he is being hit on. The man is a Jaeger fly. So Herc finishes the beer he was bought and says that he has an early night tomorrow. Lots of work tomorrow, and the guy looks disappointed. He writes his number down on a scrap of bar napkin and gives it to Herc, just in case Herc gives his number, and 

Herc expects to lose it. 

He does. Except -- 

...

Except the next time they're back in Long Beach, Chuck is off at the Jaeger Academy and Herc has to get all of his news about what his son is up to thirdhand, from Stacker Pentecost, who gets it because his daughter is at the Jaeger Academy and actually calls home because she doesn't resent being alive. Scott is off with some girl that might stick around for longer than a weekend, and Herc finds himself back in the same bar as before, sitting in the same seat, drinking a similarly terrible American beer. He goes back three nights in a row, and on the fourth night, he sees the guy from before, sort of sitting in a corner by himself, picking at the label on his beer. 

Herc stands up, goes over to him. He can see the man is surprised, and they finish their beers. Then, they walk to the man's apartment four blocks away: another round of American beers all around, and Herc is wondering what he can say, what stupid idea made him do this. There are Christmas lights on the walls. The walls are thin; cars are passing by close. He was imagining it, wasn't he? This was -- 

There is a leash coiled up on the kitchen counter, half-buried under mail advertisements. 

"You have a dog?" Herc says, just to make conversation, deeply regretting his stupidity -- and then, he sees the man's face goes bright red, and --

"I was, uh," he says. "I was looking after a friend's dog for a while." 

Herc looks at the man's face: mid-twenties, brown eyes, hair somewhere between brown and blonde, and the man won't look Herc in the eyes. There are splotches of red on his cheeks, and his face is half-turned away, but Herc can see enough of it. 

"Were you collared?" Herc says, softly as he knows how. 

"We broke up," the man says, finally. Awkwardly. Surprise audible in his voice. What the hell does Herc Hansen, rockstar Jaeger pilot know about how collaring works? 

The man won't look at him, so Herc puts down his beer on the counter.

He pushes the mail advertisements off and picks up the leash. "C'mere," Herc says, gently. 

...

Part of him, Herc thinks, went up in smoke with Scissure. 

...

Herc closes the curtains on every window in the place, plus the ones leading to the balcony, and when he comes back to the kitchen, the man -- boy, if Herc is honest with himself, the boy is naked and kneeling on the floor, head down. They talk, briefly, laying out ground rules. The boy gave his collar back when they broke up and doesn't have another: the way he says it, defensive, a little angry, and Herc says that's fine. This is just for tonight, isn't it? Herc is going to tie the boy's hands behind his back, and they're going to go around the apartment. If he does something Herc doesn't like, Herc will hit him with his open palm, but nothing more. 

Safeword is spitting out the leash. If the leash isn't in his mouth, that's because he'll be sucking Herc's dick. 

Herc sees the shoulders tremble and the mouth go open a little. 

"You all right?"

"Yes." 

"You want to stop when you're on my dick, you lean back and stop. I won't have my hands on your head. We'll stop whenever you pull off me."

The boy licks his lips, which are red from kissing the stubble on Herc's throat. 

"You understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes," the boy says. 

"I want to hear it from you."

The boy looks up at Herc, and says, clearly, distinctly, "I understand. We'll stop whenever I pull off you." 

Herc waits a moment just to make sure, then casually hits him in the face. "Don't look me in the face unless I say you can," Herc says, and he knows he's made the right call when he sees the boy's dick start to get hard between his thighs. 

"Lick," Herc says, holding the carabiner end of the leash out to the red mouth. 

The boy licks. The boy gets harder. 

...

Herc finds a pair of dress shoes under the futon and uses the shoelaces from them to tie the boy's hands behind his back. The knots aren't elegant, and it's nothing like what Angela would have done, but Herc decides he likes the contrast between the brown laces and the pale inside of the wrist. He tests them, pulls on them just enough for them to bite against the wrists and get a whimper, and then he tugs on the leash to make sure it's securely inside that red, red mouth. It is. Red, red mouth, brown, brown eyes. 

After that, they make a slow circuit of the apartment, the boy naked and shuffling after Herc on his knees, Herc still fully dressed and finishing off his beer. He nudges the boy with a boot if he doesn't move fast enough, and they move through the apartment slowly, Herc looking at the photos on the wall, studying the spines of the books on the shelves. The bedroom isn't big, and the closet door is open and Herc itches to arrange the clothes more neatly, but doesn't. There is a big, expensive-looking computer and desk setup in there, and after that, they go back out to the living room, towards the kitchen, past the kitchen, all the way to -- 

Herc smiles. "You ready to go outside and show everyone how much you love being on a leash?" 

They don't go outside into the little courtyard with palm trees and a cheap water feature and dozens of apartments all looking out into the tiny patch of green -- they didn't talk about that, and at this point, there is maybe a little trust, enough so that the mix of lust and fear and shame that flies across the boy's face gets Herc harder than he has been in a long fucking time. So Herc takes the leash out, feels the red spots on the knees and shins from following him around the place, hears the eager little noise when he pulls the condom out of his pocket. 

Herc gets the wrapper off, rolls the condom onto his dick, and gets a blowjob with his back up against the apartment door. 

True to promise, Herc keeps his hands by his sides so that anytime Mark wants, he can pull off and stop. 

...

Part of him, Herc thinks, went up in smoke with -- 

...

They don't have enough with only Herc's Drift evidence, and the only girl whose face that Herc saw enough for PPDC to identify doesn't want to press charges. _Separation on a voluntary basis with no contest on benefit denial_ is how general counsel puts it, but for that to happen, Scott Hansen needs to sign a resignation letter. Stacker says that he'll deliver it personally and make sure that Hansen gets the message, which makes their general counsel sigh, pinch the bridge of her nose, and say that she didn't hear that. 

Eventually, Scott puts pen to paper, but right before he does, he looks up. He has an ugly look on his face, a little bit of the menace and blackmailing he'd been trying earlier. 

He says, _You haven't been in the Drift with my brother, have you? You should see the things my brother wants to do to you, Marshal._

 _A lot worse than anything you think I ever did._

II. 

The first time is Anchorage. Afternoon, gray skies, non-stop rain and green conifers. Herc is outside, trying to stay under the overhang of the building, so that he doesn't get soaked: a call pulled him out of class. Chuck has been suspended for a week. What is it this time? Fighting? Talking back at a teacher? Destruction of school property? Herc is on hold, waiting for the principal to come and tell him which one it is. 

A woman is out there, too -- red hair, two piercings in the eyebrows and another through the lip; she had been smoking when Herc came out, but moves down to the edge of the overhang to give him some privacy. It will take, apparently, some time to get the principal because it's the second of three lunch periods at the school and they're down an administrator, so Herc puts the phone on speaker, puts it in his pocket, and goes over to apologize for ruining her smoke break: she grins, doesn't pretend that she didn't hear him cursing while listening to the voicemail. Instead, she tells him how, at twelve, she was permanently expelled from school for a misunderstanding involving her locking an obnoxious history teacher inside a supply closet. Herc starts to explain that -- 

The door behind them opens. Herc and the woman turn. 

A man sticks his head out. "Tam," he says. "We're up next." 

He looks over at Herc. Herc looks back at him. 

Herc is too worked up about Chuck in the moment to have a clear memory of either their faces from that afternoon, but that night, after Scott tells Herc to stick around at the future-Jaeger-pilots-meet-current-Jaeger-pilots after party because he'll go home and make sure Chuck hasn't run away, and well, Herc could use the time off -- Stacker Penteost comes up to Herc and introduces himself properly. They have six minutes of polite conversation. Then, Herc downs the rest of his drink, and they go out behind the auditorium, back by that overhang. 

It's still raining, but this time, Herc is on his knees in his dress blues, blowing Stacker Pentecost. 

...

The second time is Manila. Again, the mix of Scott and Chuck and what it means to be a Ranger, but Tamsin is gone, retired from active duty. Everyone in the Shatterdome knows that Pentecost will probably get his permanent step to Marshal for scrambling a three-team drop against MN-6 with remarkable speed and efficiency -- a Category-3, the biggest seen to date, stopped at the ten mile zone by Nova, Lucky, and Gipsy. 

Dinner is in the canteen, raucous and loud with one of the pilots in Nova Hyperion teaching Raleigh Becket anti-Kaiju phrases in Korean and him picking it up with surprising facility,in the locker room, Scott and Herc tossed a five-peso coin for who would go first. Scott won, so after dinner, he disappears between one turn in the hallway and next. 

Herc goes back to with Chuck, who is excited. Bright-eyed. Talking to Herc for once, wanting to know every internal operational detail of the fight from inside the Conn-POD, and after Chuck is in bed, Herc sits up in the empty living quarters, drinking and waiting for Scott to come back -- Scott doesn't come home until half-past one local time, pleased with himself, and Herc throws down the rest of his drink, so as not to waste it, then goes out: the elevator is too slow, so he takes the four flights by foot, then swipes his ID to get out of the stairway. 

Second left, third door on the right, Herc with his heart in his mouth, hoping he isn't too late -- Stacker opens the door before Herc's knuckle hits the door a third time, and they're kissing before the apology is out of Herc's mouth, before the door is fully closed. 

"Mako is with Nova. I told her she could stay up overnight to watch the re-fit," Stacker says, pushing Herc up against the wall. 

"Neighbors?" 

"Out celebrating," Stacker says. "We've got all -- "

The words cut off because Herc drops onto his knees, and the way he looks on his knees takes the words straight out of Stacker's mouth. Words won't work, so Stacker braces his arms against the wall and lets Herc undo his belt, then the top two buttons, then unzip the fly, then set his heels against the wall and put Stacker's hips under his hands, Stacker's dick in his mouth. Herc feels rather than sees the way the muscles on Stacker's stomach tighten he Herc finds the combination of mouth and tongue that Stacker likes. There is way that Stacker's hand slides over the top of his head, and Herc's hair is too short to grip, but he can feel the weight and strength of that broad palm and those strong fingers, urging him on, asking him to take it deeper, to sink back onto his heels and straighten out his throat and shoulders so that he can fit all of it in, concentrate on breathing out through his nose, and Stacker, Stacker, Stacker -- 

...

Part of Herc --

...

"Jesus."

This is when they're in Long Beach, and they're still in the Conn-Pod -- false alarm, false movement in the Breach, and they're waiting for clearance to approach the Shatterdome. Scott is breathing deep, working through the adrenaline of getting suited up and in the Jaeger and having nowhere to go. Herc disconnected from his motion harness as soon as they were came to waiting position. It's a bad habit, but the combined efforts LOCCENTS on two continents haven't broken him of it yet. In the red-lit darkness, with the conn off, Scott asks if Herc actually did that with the Marshal. Tired and feeling every day of being over thirty, Herc asks if his brother actually went home with the twins on the cover of that swimsuit magazine. 

Scott grins and says _yes_ , and Herc makes a startled, choking noise inside his helmet that doesn't need to be picked up by a mike to be heard. 

Later, Herc thinks about the line between what he has done and what Scott did. 

...

Part of Herc goes up in smoke with Scissure. Another part goes up in smoke when he finds out what kind of man his brother is. 

The first time with Pentecost happens in Anchorage. The second time happens in Manila. Whether because of Scott or not, whether it's because of Chuck or otherwise, whether it's because Herc and Stacker associate each other with happiness and _glory days_ and the six years that follow are not good times, with Jaegers being lost faster than they can be build -- the third time takes a long, long time to happen. 

...

In fact, the third time doesn't happen until what turns out to be the night before the triple event: Herc's bad habit of disconnecting from his motion harness catches up with him, and he sits in his quarters with the lights off, arm in a sling, eyes closed. Stacker knocks, but Herc doesn't get up until Stacker calls, through the door, loud as he needs to be heard, _it's me_. After that, Herc pushes his chair back from the table and comes over to the door. He fumbles with the lock, and Stacker comes through and closes the door, but doesn't ask Herc to turn on a light. Herc doesn't turn one on: consequently, they're standing chest in the almost full darkness, with only the alarm clock on the wall and the emergency light strips on the wall and the PPDN news broadcast that Herc had been watching. 

Stacker is taller by two inches; he is wearing not just the dress blues he always wears when there is the chance of being called into LOCCENT for kaiju, but also the navy topcoat he wears in bad weather. There is rain on the shoulders, and there are gloves sticking out of his pockets. The horn buttons gleam. 

Slowly, being careful not to bump the broken collarbone, Stacker leans forward, down just a fraction, and kisses Herc. It takes Herc a moment to kiss him back, but he does: then, he takes off his topcoat and folds it over the back of the chair that Herc had been sitting on. It's still dark inside the room; it's been years since Manila. 

Then, Stacker gets down on his knees in front of Herc. 

...

Things that Herc has thought about doing to Stacker Pentecost -- 

...

After the double event, Herc can't pilot Striker. A triple event will happen sooner rather than later, and who is going to be in the Drift with Chuck, taking the bomb into the Breach? The only experienced Jaeger pilot in fighting condition left on station, and after kissing Herc, moving slowly, being careful not to bump the arm in a sling, wearing his navy suit, but after having taken off the tailored wool topcoat, he gets down on his knees. Herc has known Stacker for a decade, but he doesn't know how to read the expression he sees at that moment. 

Then: 

"How does this work?" Stacker asks. Herc knows this expression: he sees it when someone that Stacker likes and trusts asks him a question that he doesn't have an answer for. It isn't meant to be unfriendly. Stacker frowns. "What do you usually use for a safeword?" 

Herc knows his mouth is half-open. 

"We'll use red, yellow, green," Herc says, finally. "Red to stop everything. Yellow to stop what I'm doing. Green -- "

"If I want you to keep doing it." Stacker says, and Herc can't breathe for a second, can't manage words for somewhat longer, so Stacker reaches over. Still on his knees, he takes Herc's left hand and lays it along the side of his face. 

...

Things that Herc has thought about doing to Stacker Pentecost: fucking him on his back, fucking him on his front, fucking him on the side with Stacker's left arm twisted up behind him, fingers curled up in the small of his back, Herc holding the wrist down with one hand and running his other hand up and down the circuit scars and seeing which ones, exactly, still tickled, which ones still hurt, alternating that with strokes of Stacker's cock while all the way inside him. What Stacker would look like with rope over his wrists and shoulders, what Stacker would look like in a sling with his thighs bound to his forearms and held as wide apart as his shoulders. On one particularly drunk and lonely and bored and self-indulgent night alone in his quarters, even what Stacker would look and sound and feel like with a piercing in each of his nipples, moaning when Herc reached around and pulled gently on them in turn. 

Something that Herc has thought about and actually done, no matter what he jerks off to at night, and, in part, because of it: follow Stacker Pentecost to the end of the world. 

...

Even if he wouldn't put it into words, Herc knows that a part of him went up in smoke with Scissure. He knows another part went up in smoke when he found out what kind of man his brother was: how many times has Herc had sex in the ten years after Scissure and the six years since his brother? 

On the other hand, Herc remembers the smell of smoke and wet green trees in Anchorage and taking the stairs two at a time up to Stacker's quarters in Manila. He remembers Stacker's voice as the voice of LOCCENT on a dozen deployments and three kills, two in Lucky Seven, one in Striker, and all the meetings with suits and ties and flashy smiles -- not just the day they closed Anchorage, but the months and months and rounds and rounds of meetings that went on before that, when Stacker fought every step of a long, losing war to keep the Jaeger program alive. How many times had he seen Stacker swallow his pride and beg for just a little more time, just a little more money? Herc remembers Stacker's voice telling him over the phone that Nova Hyperion had self-destructed a half-mile off the Port of Jakarta rather than allow nuking of a city of thirty million. 

After that, there were three operational Jaegers left, defending one hundred thirty-five thousand miles of coastline and eight billion people. 

...

So Herc tells Stacker to stay kneeling -- _kneeling_ , he thinks, heart beating hard enough in his chest that it hurts -- and goes around his quarters, turning on lights and assembling what he has on hand: a pair of plastic gloves from the first-aid kit strapped to the underside of the built-in desk, a half-empty bottle of lube two years past expiration. A similarly old condom, but Stacker makes a gesture towards his coat, hanging up on the back of a chair. Herc puts his hand into the pocket and finds a handful of condoms, picked up on the way past medical with the PPDC eagles on the back. Some of the last ones ever made, possibly, and Stacker grins a little when Herc adds them to the pile on the bed. Herc grins back. Then, he tosses the old condom, so it doesn't get mixed in. What else does he have on hand? Not much specifically for the purpose. 

Herc has the shoelaces in his shoes, Stacker's shoes, though he doesn't know if he can get either out in less than half an hour with his left hand. It occurs to Herc that he could get Stacker to take them out. The thought is a little dizzying, and when he comes back to Stacker, still kneeling by the side of the bed -- the quarters aren't big, and Herc finds that Stacker has his suit coat off, neatly folded and laid on the side of the bed. 

Herc picks it up and hands it back to Stacker. "Put it back on," he says. 

Stacker blinks, but does it, left arm first, then right, and Herc tells Stacker they're going to start the beginning. First, the suit coat. Then, when Herc says so, the dark blue tie. Herc takes each piece over to the table and lays them out flat, and doesn't give the command for Stacker to take the next piece off until he is standing and square and watching. When Herc tells him to, Stacker undoes the buttons of his shirt. He holds still while Herc runs his hand along the inside of the collar, over the edge of the undershirt, heeling the hot skin and how Stacker leans into his hand. Herd runs his hand over Stacker's mouth and feels Stacker's mouth open and breathe out hot, damp air between his fingers. 

"Up," he says, and Stacker gets off his knees: standing, he is taller than Herc. Their shoulders are almost equally broad, but even this far into the Mark-I radiation sickness, Stacker's are still heavier and curved with more muscle. 

"All right?" Herc asks.

"Yes," Stacker says, eyes on Herc's face, watching every movement. Herc waits another moment in case Stacker wants to change his mind and tell him to slow down. 

When Stacker doesn't say anything, Herc holds his hand out, pauses so that his voice won't shake, clears his throat so that his voice won't sound too rough. 

Then, he says, "Belt." 

...

They're on the bed, and Stacker is on his back, shirt off, naked. His legs hang off the bed, and Herc settles between them. He works his way down Stacker's torso, licking more than biting until Stacker settles into it, then biting a little and judging how much Stacker likes it: no code word, and Stacker likes it some, but not that much. Consequently, when Stacker is warmed up, Herc moves over to the right-hand side and fulfills old curiosity. He finds out which Driftsuit scars are still tender, which ones tickle. Herc follows them from the arm, up the shoulder, then down the side, to the ones that wrap around and over the hip. Herc lets himself run his tongue over Stacker's balls just a little. When Stacker moans, Herc deliberately turns away. Gets back up. 

"Turn over," Herc says and puts a hand under Stacker's right hip, over the knot of tissue where Herc's tongue had been a few minutes before: the skin is still a little damp, and Herc watches the broad shoulders turn as Stacker rolls onto his stomach. 

Stacker is more than half-hard, and Herc has been careful about keeping him that way. With his face turned towards the wall, Stacker starts to rub himself against the sheets: to get him to stop, Herc settles his good forearm against between Stacker's shoulder blades and puts his body weight there. The muscles tighten, and there is a moment, Herc knows, when Stacker is turned on and frustrated enough that some part of him is considering weight and leverage and the fact that Herc is off-balance. In the Kwoon, Stacker wouldn't hesitate, but they're not there. Stacker is on his stomach, knees spread, and he takes a breath and holds it. Herc sees the muscles relax. 

When Stacker's hips go still, he kisses Stacker's back as encouragement, listens to the sound that Stacker makes. 

...

Herc manages to get a glove on his left hand without too much embarrassment, and whatever awkwardness there is, he'll live with it for the noise that Stacker makes when Herc puts a finger in him. Herc is pretty sure Stacker has never been fucked up the ass before: in fact, he isn't sure how many fingers Stacker has ever taken. Using lube generously, Herc puts another one, then a third, and the first time he finds Stacker's prostate, Stacker -- 

"Put your right elbow under you. Put your hand around your dick," Herc says, knowing his voice is shaking and not having any idea how he can sound like the top he is playing tonight. "Don't come unless I tell you to."

...

When Stacker is gasping against the sheets and gripping them with both hands because he'll come if he touches himself another fucking stroke and manages to pant out as much, Herc asks Stacker what he wants. Stacker struggles, but can't quite get the words out: Herc hadn't been expecting him to, so he takes his fingers out, puts on the condom he'd opened up and put by Stacker's hip. He takes Stacker's good left arm and pulls it up, so that the wrist lies in the small of Stacker's back, just below where the spine ports on Coyote Tango burned a pair of matching scars into Stacker each a little smaller than a fifty-cent coin. 

"Keep your hand there," Herc says, and when he pushes in, Stacker makes a noise like nothing Herc has ever heard before, but stays face-down on the mattress and keeps his wrist in the small of his back. 

Herc pulls him into a rhythm. 

...

Afterwards, they take turns washing with the water turned up as hot as it'll go: an old Ranger trick for easing the pins-and-needles that go with coming off neural overload. Herc's bathroom is standard Shatterdome issue, and it's Hong Kong, so the water that comes out of the faucet isn't fit for drinking: Herc gives Stacker a glass of water, then cranks up the water temperature. When steam starts to fill the room, he puts Stacker in there and watches the blurred shape in the glass sag against the wall. 

"Your nose," Herc says, quietly, when Stacker comes out. "Here."

"I'm -- "

Herc hands Stacker a wad of tissue, then takes a wash cloth, runs it under cold water in the sink, and folds it in half. He puts it on Stacker's forehead and keeps it there for him until Stacker settles back to lean against the sink. 

Eventually, Stacker opens his eyes. He is naked, water on his shoulders and skin, and Herc is wearing his sling. The air is saturated with humidity, and they've spent the working part of the day talking through exactly what Herc needs to know to step into Stacker's shoes when he doesn't come back from the Breach. Herc looks at Stacker. Stacker looks back at him. 

...

Eventually, Stacker's nosebleed stops, and he helps Herc undress for the shower. He helps Herc back into his clothes and back into the sling. Then, Stacker goes back to his quarters to sleep: Herc's bed won't fit two men their size, particularly given Herc's broken collarbone. He kisses Herc at the door, half in the hallway and half out. 

...

"-- so we'll Drift just fine." 

...

There is a part of Herc Hansen that goes up in smoke after Scissure. Another part of him goes when he finds out what kind of man his brother is: how much is left when his son and best friend atomize themselves at the bottom of the ocean? 

More than he expected.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. So yeah, I promised [dead-end-street](http://dead-end-street.tumblr.com) a fic about Herc and Stacker getting one day of comfort with each other before Pitfall. Uh, this was angstier and kinkier than expected. SORRY. 
> 
> 2\. There is a picture on the Bluray extras where Max Martini is standing there with a stuffed bulldog toy and a big ol' leash in his hand. Somebody on Tumblr gif'd it, and that post is at least 35% of why this fic exists. Another 50% is [The Golden Age by Woodkid](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBUM9dP7220). 
> 
> 3\. Thanks to [jamaillith](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jamaillith/pseuds/jamaillith) for the lube consult, to [saellys](http://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys) for cheerleading above and beyond the call of friendship and providing insight into just how kinky Stacker probably would be in this universe, and to [Vongchild](http://archiveofourown.org/users/vongchild), who I whined at incessantly while writing this.


End file.
